A total of 844 people remain missing, about half of them fishermen who ventured out to sea before Bopha hit, Ramos said, adding he feared many of the missing were dead.

"The death toll will go higher. We found a lot of bodies yesterday, buried under fallen logs and debris," he told.

He added the toll from Bopha, the worst natural disaster to hit the country this year, would exceed the 1,268 confirmed dead after Typhoon Washi struck the southern Philippines inDecember 2011. "We prepared. We were just simply overwhelmed," said Ramos.

"They did not expect this intensity. The last time (this part of the country) got hit by a strong storm was 1912," he added. He added that many evacuation centres were destroyed by the typhoon.

More than 27,000 people remain in such centres almost two weeks after Bopha hit as the search for the dead and missing continues, the civil defence office said.

Colonel Lyndon Paniza, spokesman of the military forces in the worst-affected region, was less optimistic of finding any survivors.

"We are on (body) retrieval mode already. We are done with search and rescue," he told.

Paniza, who oversees the hardest-hit regions which suffered over 960 dead, said he expected the death toll to rise further. "It has been 12 days already so it looks like (survival chances) are doubtful," he said.

Among the casualties were seven soldiers who were killed and four who remain missing after they were hit by flash floods while doing relief work, he said.

In the southern town of New Bataan, which suffered over 500 dead, including 235 bodies that are still unidentified, people still struggled to recover, building makeshift shelters out of scrap wood and rags.

Town Mayor Lorenzo Balbin said the toll of the dead may even be larger than the official lists because many transients, who pass through the town of work on small-scale mines and plantations, do not even register as residents.

With no one to report them missing, their deaths may go unnoticed, he said.